


round and round

by nymja



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Reincarnation, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-02-20 15:09:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13149258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nymja/pseuds/nymja
Summary: A defector, a farmboy. A guardian, an idealist. A saboteur, a prince. A scavenger, a stormtrooper.Round and round they find each other.--for the tumblr prompt: the one where soulmates are reincarnated and keep finding each other throughout their different lives.





	1. the old republic: a defector

The first time they meet, she’s running.

 

Her arms are pumping, sweat sliding down her neck and back as she breathes in and out. Tears sting her eyes but she doesn’t care. The sun is setting on the horizon, staining the tall grass that nearly engulfs her small frame in oranges and browns. She runs toward it, knowing that the Jedi Enclave is in the opposite direction. 

 

The toe of her boot snags on a biba tree’s root, and she falls down. Her chest hits the ground with a hard thump, the air getting knocked out of her as her teeth clang painfully together. She cries, rolling onto her back.

 

When she looks down, she sees that her training trousers are torn, her knee a bloodied mess underneath. She bites down on her lower lip, trying not to look at the wound. In the distance, she sees a pack of kath hounds, currently preoccupied with fighting one another. But she remembers Master Vandar’s warnings, that they could smell blood and trouble and she was currently  _ both. _

 

“Here, let me look at it.”

 

She startles at the sound of the voice, jerking into a seat and turning toward the newcomer. He’s a little older than her, wearing a light tunic and pants that the farmers around here often wear. His hair is dark and cropped close to the scalp--no braid to mark him as a padawan. There’s a blaster strapped to his back and a pair of goggles on his head.

 

“W-who are you?” She asks, drawing the back of her arm to wipe the tears from her eyes.

 

He tells her his name, a big smile on his face. She stares, a little awed. A little uncertain.

 

He never asks why she was running away from the Enclave. Instead, he tells her stories about the farm he lives on, the droid he’s currently trying to hunt down, and that he wants to learn how to be a pilot and see somewhere a little more interesting than  _ Dantooine.  _

 

She listens, rapt. It’s the first time-- since she was pulled away from a planet no one cared about, from no ones who didn’t care about her-- since she began Jedi training that someone has bothered to  _ talk to her.  _ Like she was a person. Like she wasn’t alone.

 

She stops sniffling, trying to be braver. He squeezes her hand with his when he sends her off and there’s something strange in her stomach. 

 

\--

 

It’s the first of many times they meet, her and the farmboy. When she’s sent out by the Masters to gather herbs from the plains, or supplies from the trading post, she always makes a stop to the same biba tree. And it’s there she’ll wait, because she’s good at waiting. Eventually, he always comes. Sometimes it’s covered in dirt, or oil, or something unidentifiable. Sometimes he’s in his work clothes and busy and she’ll help him with his chores as he tells her about news and gossip from the port. Sometimes he brings food from his home, and they have a picnic of small, sweet treats she would  _ never  _ be permitted at the Temple. Sometimes she’s injured, scrapes from training or sparring--and he always will patch her up. 

 

_ I like fixing things,  _ he’d tell her around a smile.  _ But stop trying so hard to break, okay? _

 

In return, she tells him about Jedi training, about the philosophy and history she’s learning. Sometimes, when she’s feeling bold and cheeky, she’ll levitate the rocks around them just to feel impressive. He never acts like he notices them, but when she drops them in disappointment he always taps her nose. 

 

He’s her first and dearest friend.

 

\--

 

They get older. His stories change from children’s tales to war songs, and she begins to wear the robes of a padawan, having been assigned to Master Vrook as an apprentice. 

 

And she...notices him more. In different ways. She thinks his hands are large and his arms strong. That his smile is bright. That he’s handsome. When they have picnics, her shoulder brushes his and usually their thighs touch when they sit. Sometimes, in her dreams, he’s there. She wonders more and more if he has a sweetheart. Of how she’d feel if he did.

 

She’s increasingly reluctant to leave when the sun sets. To return to Master Vrook’s tutelage, and Kavar’s training. Vandar’s lectures. 

 

Feeling alone. Feeling less like a person, like  _ herself,  _ and more like something colder. 

 

She wonders if he feels the same. If he cares as much as she does that she’s confined by the Order she serves. 

 

She wishes she knew.

 

\--

 

The day she builds her first lightsaber, it’s not to Vrook she runs. Instead, she goes to that same old biba tree. At the base of its trunk is a metal canister, her name scrawled out in Aurabesh on it. She opens it, and the smell of coca hits her nose. She drinks it greedily, some of it running down her chin, as she waits for him to arrive.

 

After an hour or two, she hears her name called, and her head lifts. 

 

He’s waving at her, a small figure in the distance growing closer.

 

And she does the first thing she thinks to do. She runs, again.

 

She collides against him, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face into his shoulder. He seems surprised for a moment, shocked even, but soon he’s holding her back just as tight, his nose brushing along her neck and and under her jaw and his heart beats just above hers and she feels  _ electric.  _

 

She pulls away, arms clasping his. “I did it,” she proclaims smugly, brown eyes glinting with mischief.

 

He looks softer, somehow. His smile is wide and toothy. “Did what?”

 

She grins, taking a step back. Reluctantly, his hands fall from her arms. She moves to her side, where she pulls out a silver cylinder. It’s longer than most lightsabers, but light on her palms.

 

“I built it myself,” she breathes. “It works.”

 

His expression falls, but she doesn’t notice. She’s focused on her new lightsaber, the first thing that feels like she’s done it  _ right  _ in a long time.

 

Barely able to contain her excitement, she looks up at him again and smiles. “Want to see it?”

 

He doesn’t look down at the handle, his focus on her face. The smile he wears becomes bittersweet, edged with something sad. “Sure.”

 

She thumbs the ignition. Two blades emerge, one at either end. They’re a bright blue, like the tunic he always wears. Their glow casts shadows around them as the sun sets.

 

“Looks like you’re almost a Knight,” he says. She doesn’t catch the tone, doesn’t understand what it is he’s not saying.

 

“Almost,” she repeats, eyes wide in awe as she looks at the weapon in her hand. It’s perfectly balanced, the sign of her finally progressing. 

 

“I’ve...got to get home,” he says.

 

Her attention shifts at that, the lightsaber disengaging with a snap-hiss. “So soon?” 

 

Something about him looks...sad. And angry. She doesn’t know what’s happened. “Yeah, well. Harvest is coming up.” He clears his throat, tells her to take care, and just like that he’s gone.

 

She stands under the shade of the biba tree, lightsaber held numbly in her hand, as he becomes smaller and smaller in the distance.

 

\--

 

She goes back to the tree. The next day, the day after.

 

He isn’t there. There’s no canister with her name on it. There’s nothing.

 

\--

 

Back at the Enclave, there are whispers. She’s heard some of them before, from him, but some of them are new.

 

They talk about the invading Mandalorians, the losses the Republic is suffering. She sits in the middle of their courtyard, picking at the grass, as she listens to an older apprentice (or is he a Knight now?) called Alec tell them about the Jedi’s need to be active. That they can save many lives. 

 

That they need to fight. 

 

She watches him, tall and wearing red, and she wonders if she believes him. 

 

\--

 

“The Jedi are not soldiers,” Vrook grumbles dismissively when they’re working through forms together. “My apprentice, out of anyone, should know that.”

 

She nods, bringing her outstretched arm to the front of her body, palm facing him as her limb stretches. “There is pain in the galaxy though, Master Vrook. I feel it. I’m sure you do, too.”

 

He stares at her underneath his severe brows. “And what if, apprentice, we only add to that pain?” 

 

She frowns. He raises his lightsaber to begin their spar.

 

“All will be as the Force wills it, padawan. It is best if you remember that.” 

 

She swallows, before nodding.

 

\--

 

Revan finds her, the next day.  _ The  _ Revan. The new Knight who is making the Council so agitated.

 

“I hear you are a decent fighter,” they say.

 

She inhales, eyes darting up. “I’m good at sparring,” she says, trying to be honest. 

 

“And a pilot,” they continue. 

 

She hesitates, then nods.

 

“I’ve also heard…” at this, they step forward, hands clasped behind their back. She watches them, swallowing. “That you have a friend, here. Outside the Enclave.”

 

Her mouth goes dry. The grip she has on her lightsaber is clammy.

 

“Don’t you think you have a responsibility,” Revan whispers, softly, into her ear. “To do what you can for them? To put your skills to good use, defending the Republic?” A knowing look. “The farmsteads?”

 

She goes cold. 

 

“I’ll be leaving within a week,” Revan says, looking out at the horizon. At something only they can see. “That gives you nine days to make your peace, whatever you decide to do with it.”

 

She looks at the ground. “I’ve never been in battle before.”

 

“Neither have most of the Republic armies. I can’t promise you there won’t be loss,” Revan tilts their head. “But I can promise you there will be an end to it if you come with me. The Council might not give you that choice.”

 

She exhales. Thinks of him, and his smiles and his stories. Of how many of them featured heroes, standing up to do what’s right.

 

“I’ll think about it,” she whispers.

 

Revan nods. “Meet me at the tree at dawn on the ninth day if you wish to go with us. But know this…” they rest a hand on her shoulder. “You might not be able to come back to the Order if you leave.”

 

The Knight, who is soon to become a legend, leaves at that. And she stands by herself, fingertips toying over the ignition of her lightsaber.

 

As soon as Revan says the words, she knows what she needs to do.

 

She knows what’s right.

 

\--

 

That night, she sneaks away to their bibo tree. He’s not there. For one brief moment of insanity, she thinks to try and find his farm. But such an action would have large consequences. For both of them.

 

She waits by the tree, tears stinging her eyes as the sun rises. 

 

She is alone.

 

But she can’t go without saying goodbye. So her hands make quick work on a datapad, and she leaves it against the base of the tree for him to find.

 

She hopes he does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Knights of the Old Republic](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_Knights_of_the_Old_Republic)
> 
>  
> 
> [Vrook Lamar](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Vrook_Lamar)
> 
>  
> 
> [The Jedi Enclave](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Jedi_Enclave)
> 
>  
> 
> [Dantooine](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Dantooine/Legends)
> 
>  
> 
> [Revan](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Revan)
> 
>  
> 
> [Darth Malak or Alec](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Darth_Malak)
> 
>  
> 
> [Mandalorian Wars](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Mandalorian_Wars)


	2. the old republic: a farmboy

He is a fool and an idiot, and he should have been braver.

 

But it had hurt, to see that lightsaber and hear her talk about becoming a Knight. To know that no matter what he does, he’s not going to have anything to offer to someone destined to serve the galaxy. He hates that he even dreamed up those scenarios-- the ones where she leaves the Order, and stays with him on his farmstead. Or maybe they leave together. Maybe they go on adventures, like the old songs. Maybe he shows her the universe and she shows her smile. 

 

He’s tried to let those ideas go. He’s grown up on Dantooine, and he knows that the Jedi who train there leave eventually for Coruscant. That they...they don’t form attachments. That she and him are never going to have anything but some fond memories spent underneath a tree.

 

But he loves her. He’s loved her for years now, and that love has taken so many different forms that all he knows is being without her feels like death. He tries to atrophy that muscle, to let his love become a hungry thing that might starve and wither and hurt a little less.

 

He can’t even last a month.

 

He tries, though. He goes back to the farm, he meets in the market to trade with other merchants. He drinks some Tarisian ale at the small, rundown cantina they have and listens to the older men and women talk about the Mandalorian invasion and Republic recruitment. He doesn’t know if he has the heart for war, but he likes to think that he would do the right thing if the occasion called on him to do it.

 

Then the gossip changes. They start talking about the Jedi that are leaving. About someone called Revan and Alec and how they’re going to bring the Knights into the fight. The civilians are excited when they talk about this, when they see people in sand-colored robes trying to find passage off of Dantooine in the hub. They think they’re going to be saved.

 

Something about that talk makes him go cold. And letting go becomes less important as his mind is busy rehearsing a million speeches that all start with “don’t go” and end with “stay with me.” 

 

One day the anxiety and the longing and the hurt all become too much for him, and he sets down his work on the vaporators and starts running. 

 

When he gets to the biba tree, there is only one datapad waiting for him.

 

_ I’ve gone with Revan to fight the Mandalorians.  _ It says.

_ I’m sorry I couldn’t say goodbye. I don’t know if I’ll be back. _

 

_ Thank you for all you’ve given me. May the Force forever guide your steps, wherever they take you.  _

 

That’s it. There’s no message about where she’s going, when she left. If she loved him back. If she’s going to try and be safe.

 

He grips the datapad and he should have been braver.

 

\--

 

Two weeks later, a recruitment officer for the Republic lands on Dantooine to restock on rations and Jedi. He finds her in the cantina after hours, slamming drinks and looking haunted.

 

“Can I help you?” She rasps.

 

He takes a deep breath. “Do you need mechanics?”

 

She stares at him, then snorts into her cup as she drains it. “If you can patch them up faster than they shoot them, why not.”

 

The next morning he is on a roster for the 2187 Corps of Engineers for the Galactic Republic’s navy.

 

As his transport lifts up into the atmosphere, he sees his farmstead, the Enclave, and in between them an old biba tree with withered branches.

 

He’s going to be braver.

 

\--

 

Maybe it’s a little unsettling, how easy he takes to a life at war. From the second he boards his first Republic vessel, he’s given a multi-kit and a push down into the engine rooms. At first he’s nervous--there’s so many people screaming at him, lights and sirens and machines whirring full sound around him. He can’t keep stable ground because he’s constantly being fired upon, his body pitching from one side to the next as his stomach turns. 

 

But then there’s a calm. He doesn’t know how to describe it, other than a sudden sense of  _ knowing,  _ of purpose. He thinks about the vaporators and the threshes and the service droids and his hands move on their own. Soon, it all becomes background: the screams, the heat, the cramped spaces that are stained with the stench of body odor. Fixing an ion engine becomes as easy as tuning harvestors, and not once do his fingers shake.

 

He earns the nickname Bantha five months into service, on account of how unshakeable he is.

 

By his ninth month in, he’s lost most of his hearing from the engine rooms and has to wear cybernetic implants.

 

By the eleventh month, and his thirty-first transfer from one ship to another, he starts to worry he will never defeat the odds and find one woman in the middle of a galaxy-wide war.

 

\--

 

He sees some of the worst of them. The battle of Althir. Vanquo. Serroco.

 

It’s after the hellscape of Serroco that he learns where she is. He makes friends with a zabrak named Bao-Dur during a shore leave. Like him, he’s part of the engineering corps--a tech. And he knows her name when he says it.

 

She’s under the command of a Jedi General named Meetra Surik, one of the best fighting cadres in the war. Bao-Dur is part of this cadre, as well, returning back to the front after an injury. He offers him a transfer to one of their ships in need of a good mechanic.

 

He lets himself cave in a little on himself, then. Because she’s alive, and so is he. 

 

And he’s going after her.

 

\--

 

Two standard weeks later, and he’s setting foot on the damp, spongey soil of Dxun. He’s not supposed to be on the ground, but he traded shifts, offered work, until someone finally authorized his relocation to the surface forces. He needs to be there. He needs to find her, and planetside is the best place to find a sparring specialist.

 

The jungle moon is miserable. He’s there for three days just making his way to the Republic forward camp. The moon belongs to the Mandalorians, after all, and the paths not overgrown with jungle are rife with mines and other explosives. They lose four members of their party to these guerilla tactics, another two to illness. 

 

He learns that death in space is a different thing than death on the surface. Death in space is a short puff of exhalation, a gasp and a second or two of struggled movement. Death here is so much worse. It’s drawn out illness and missing limbs and wounds to the gut. After a certain point, he has to dim his audio implants to lessen the reverberating and constant sound of screams.

 

By the time they make it through the gate that protects what few members of the Republic survive in the camp, he’s exhausted and sick and injured. He takes two feet inside the perimeter and sees black at the edges of his vision. He vaguely recalls a few things before hitting the ground: someone grabbing his shoulder, the smell of charred wires.

 

And someone calling his name.

 

\--

 

He wakes two days later, dry-mouthed and severely dehydrated. “Moon fever,” the med droid called it, an uninspired name for the climate’s effect on non-locals. 

 

When he wakes, it’s with heavy lids and aching joints, the makeshift tent around him blurring into unrecognizable hues of grey and green. 

 

There is something on his stomach. 

 

He opens his eyes with the last of his strength, and sees someone at the cot’s side. Her arms are folded, her forehead is resting on his abdomen.

 

Softly, he calls out her name, sure that this is a hallucination from the fever.

 

She looks up, and there is an awful gash across the left side of her face-- one that’s left a scar from ear to chin, as though someone was aiming for her neck but just a little too high.

 

She cries as she whispers his name back. 

 

The two of them just hold hands for the rest of the night.

 

\--

 

As he recovers, she’s by his side. She’s different now, no longer the padawan he would meet underneath the biba tree. But she’s still beautiful, she still smiles like the sun even though the smiles are fewer and far between. 

 

He still needs her to feel like he can breathe easily.

 

“It’s been hard,” she says, as they walk around the perimeter of the camp. She holds his hand as they do so (“There’s no point to hiding anything now,” she had said), and supports most of his weight as he leans into her. “This isn’t our home. The elements are against us.”

 

“How long have you been here?” He asks.

 

She closes her eyes. “Three standard months, I think.” She looks at him, her hazel eyes warming with tears. “I didn’t think I'd get to see you again.”

 

He swallows. Squeezes her hand tightly. “I’m sorry I ran away.”

 

She gives him another one of those smiles. “You ended up running back, didn’t you?”

 

He rests his forehead against hers, and she wraps her arms around his waist. Around them, the camp moves, but aside from a few stares, they remain undisturbed.

 

War has a funny way of breaking taboo.

 

\--

 

That night there is a campfire. Rations--mostly dried something or other--are passed around and those not too injured to sit gather around. She hasn’t left his side since he woke up, and that doesn’t change now. She nestles into his side, grabs his hand. He rests his head on top of hers.

 

“I wish you weren’t here,” she says sadly. 

 

“I don’t regret it,” he says, meaning it. She is warm and he feels that awful loneliness finally come to a stop when she’s at his side.

 

“I’m the only one left,” she whispers. “Out of all the padawans my age. I’m…” she exhales, closing her eyes. “I thought I was going to keep you safe. But it looks like you decided against that.”

 

“I wasn’t going to let you leave me behind.”

 

“Is it bad that part of me is glad?”

 

“No.” He shifts back, so that they’re face to face. “I’m right where I want to be.”

 

She gives a watery smile, her profile bathed in the firelight. “I think I’ve loved you for a while,” she confesses.

 

He swallows, feeling like everything’s too much, too overwhelming. “I love you too,” he says tightly, brushing his thumb over the plane of her cheek.

 

Shyly, she leans forward and closes her eyes.

 

He dips his head down and presses his lips to hers. It’s slow, measured. It feels like they were meant to do this a long, long time ago. He doesn’t think he can imagine a future where they’re  _ not  _ like this.

 

And they stay like that, huddled together, until the fire dies down into embers.

 

\--

 

She’s gone the next day. It’s a chance of luck that he even gets to say goodbye. Her leader, the Jedi General, is rounding up a forward assault team and she is meant to be directly in the line of fire.

 

“I have to go,” she says, jaw clenched and chin jutted and he  _ knows  _ he has no way of dissuading her or begging her to take him with. 

 

He grabs her hand, squeezes. “I don’t want you to.”

 

“I know.” She straightens the strap on her shoulder, the one that holds her lightsaber. “I.” She breathes. “I’m going to come back, alright? And you’re going to wait for me.”

 

He smiles, and instead of answering he folds her in his arms. “Be safe,” he manages.

 

“You too,” she whispers into his chest. 

 

He has just enough time to kiss her goodbye and then she’s gone, a lost figure in the dense foliage of the Dxun jungle.

 

\--

 

He’s shipped off planet not long after. Stationed on freighter after freighter after freighter. He makes it through the Battle of Jebble. Even Duro.

 

He lives long enough to see that the war is turning in the Republic’s favor. That the Mandalorians are surrendering more and more battles. To read the comms that she sends him, to send similar comms back to her--  _ I’m alive, I’m alright, I miss you. _

 

He lives long enough to hope, while he works. To dream about her, and him, and his farm near the biba tree.

 

And then comes Malachor.

 

\--

 

He doesn’t know until two weeks after it’s happened. He’s in the Outer Rim, part of a ship that’s chasing down pockets of Mandalorian cells. 

 

But while they make port in Onderon, they hear the news.

 

At first, it’s happy.

 

_ The war is over! It’s done!! _

 

But then he asks questions. Then he learns.

 

It was Meetra Surik’s forces that gathered on Malachor V for what is already being called the decisive battle. It was Meetra Surik’s forces that she sacrificed when she gave the order to raze the planet--and its space forces--into nothing using something called a Mass Shadow Generator. When she won the war at the expense of  _ her  _ people,  _ her  _ Jedi.

 

He thinks about it--visceral and real and it twists something inside him as he imagines what her final moments must have been like. To be in the middle of battle, risking her life for a commander that decided to throw her away because it was  _ tactical.  _ He wondered if she was scared, if she felt pain before the blast.

 

The war is over, and she’s not  _ here  _ anymore.

 

When he hears the news, he sinks to his knees, folds his hands behind his head, and screams.

 

\--

 

He makes it back home, in the end. Because there is nowhere (no one) else to return to. And for a few years, he tries his best. Because that’s what she would want-- she had  _ died  _ for him, this farm, this planet. She was gone and he was here and he had to do something to fill that awful, unending hole in his chest.

 

So he farms. He harvests. He plants.

 

And it doesn’t mean anything. He doesn’t have any answers. He doesn’t have anyway to move forward. 

 

It’s not until he sells his droids, his land, his home, that he finds his way back to that biba tree from so long ago. It stands in the middle of the unending plains, catching the orange light the way it used to catch her hair and make it shine bronze. 

 

He kneels before it, pressing his hand against its trunk, and finds it hard to breathe.

 

After a few hours, there’s the sound of footsteps behind him. He frowns, wondering if his implants are malfunctioning, before he turns.

 

There stands a young boy in padawan robes, barely out of childhood. He smiles a gap-toothed smile at him and his stomach and heart hurt at it.

 

“I know you,” he says. “You’re the engineer.”

 

He looks at him, not sure how to respond. 

 

The boy continues, unaffected. “They say you were very brave during the wars.”

 

He stares at the base of the tree.

 

“Maybe,” he manages a few minutes later. 

 

\--

 

When he leaves Dantooine for the final time-- because he can’t go home again, because he knows there’s better things he can do for her memory, because he needs to keep moving or the pain will never leave-- he sees the top of the bibo tree and closes his eyes.

 

\--

 

He ends up on Telos, in the company of Bao-Dur, as they attempt to restore the planet’s wildlife after it’s been bombarded by the Sith. He goes back to farming, to fixing ships. He likes the peace he can find in it, the feeling of being able to return life to something once thought gone forever.

 

One night, deep into cups of something strong, Bao-Dur admits his gravest sin and how he lost his arm.

 

“I built it,” he confesses. “I hit the switch when I was ordered. I...I helped kill her.”

 

And Bao-Dur does not cry, because he is too angry for that, too mad and hateful toward himself. And he wants to hate him, too. For making a machine that could kill a planet. For using it on the person he loves most. 

 

But he can’t. He doesn’t have it in him. The war has taken so much, and the years after it took more still, and the last thing she would want him to do is to become angry and vengeful and bitter.

 

“You’ll have to live with that,” is all he says, his voice cracking in grief. “Because no one else can.”

 

\--

 

Months later, his life will change for a final time.

 

It begins when a woman crashes outside of his and Bao-Dur’s restoration project. When Bao-Dur whispers “ _ General _ ” in awe and old wounds return to the forefront of his mind. And there is hatred and anger at this woman, this Exile, but he buries it deep because there’s also what’s right and what  _ she  _ would want done in her legacy.

 

It ends back on Malachor V. When he helps that woman, Meetra Surik, take down the last of the Sith. He keeps the  _ Ebon Hawk  _ in the air for as long as he can, and when it sparks and begins to explode around him, he thinks he has his answer about her final moments.

 

There isn’t any pain. Or fear. Instead he faces death with bravery once more. And when it’s over, he thinks he sees an outstretched hand. He smells the grass of Dantooine’s plains, and maybe he even feels the sun on his cheek.

 

_ I waited,  _ her voice says.  _ Now let’s go on to the next one. _

 

He closes his eyes, laughs, and grabs hold of her hand once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some links for those interested!
> 
>  
> 
> [Meetra Surik aka The Jedi Exile](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Meetra_Surik)
> 
>  
> 
> [Bao-Dur](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Bao-Dur)
> 
>  
> 
> [Battle of Malachor V](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_of_Malachor_V)
> 
>  
> 
> [Mass Shadow Generator](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Mass_Shadow_Generator)
> 
>  
> 
> [Telos](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Telos)
> 
>  
> 
> [Dxun](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Dxun)
> 
>  
> 
> [Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Knights_of_the_Old_Republic_II)


End file.
